“There is a greater court now at Marble Hill than at Kensington,” the poet Alexander Pope wrote in 1735. Now, the historic Georgian villa in west London belonging to Henrietta Howard, the Countess of Suffolk, is to reopen following decades of ruin.
Though mainly known as King George II’s mistress, Howard was a remarkable woman in her own right, overcoming personal adversity to become a looming figure in Georgian court society and a member of a dynamic circle of writers and wits.
